Six People Jim Kirk Meets in Paradise
by notboldlygoing
Summary: He was not alone. Perhaps this was the realisation that finally killed him- he always thought he would die alone. But there was his steadfast t'hy'la, best friend, brother and life-long love. Everyone else he loved was gone. (non-explicit aged K/S)


He was not alone.

Perhaps this was the realisation that finally killed him- he always thought he would die alone. But there was his steadfast t'hy'la, best friend, brother and life-long love. Everyone else he loved was gone.

Fate is cruel, and it took Leonard first. He was a few years younger than Kirk, but he became fragile as an old man, wispy and brittle. Medical knowledge couldn't save him from simply tiring out. Bones had lived quiet-like in his retirement, in a small cabin near Kirk and Spock's. They spent most of their time with him in his final days, to his chagrin and constant joking. He did his nagging to the end. It was like his anchor, and if it was, perhaps Kirk and Spock were his moorings. They were there at his side when he pronounced his own imminent death. As they sat at his bedside, Spock placed a hand on his shoulder, reminding himself that this was not supposed to be an occasion for emotion, but failing to hide his bent shoulders and deflated looks.

"I was never your enemy, Spock," he said breathlessly, toward the end.

"Nor I yours, Doctor. You are a true friend, of which I have only a few,"

"How can that be? You're so goddamn likeable." And in a whisper, he added, "Dumb Vulcan," with a half hearted smile and a wracking cough. He reached up to Jim's arm and gave it a pat.

"Take care for me, Jim boy. And see that Spock stays out of trouble. Doctor's orders." Kirk's eyes were already brimming over, and Bones' were misty, though he made an effort to blink them away.

"Was never one to ignore my doctor," Kirk said, attempting to smile through his tears.

McCoy's last words were affected in a deep Southern drawl, only served to make the pain and grief worse. "Meet you both on the other side- assuming you get there all right without me to save you." Kirk grasped his hand, spotted with age and stricken with arthritis. McCoy went out rolling his eyes and sighing at Death, boldly going where he could not return.

Grief flooded the bond between Spock and Kirk, the latter crying heavily and the former wishing he could. Even though he didn't cry, however, Spock's face was unable to keep itself from showing so much sadness that even McCoy wouldn't have found it in him to make fun. It was the face of the truly desperate, and the face of one dreading the days to come.

"I need him, t'hy'la. I have always needed him." Kirk sighed, when his tears had stemmed their flow.

"As do I. For he was my laughter when I could not smile, and my tears when I could not frown. Now I must face both without the comfort of the good doctor McCoy."

"He was my best friend."

"And mine."

Then Scotty went. It was years later, but time means little when people are so old. Perhaps it was the constant radiation exposure of an engineer, or perhaps it was the excess weight that finally caught up with him. Kirk and Spock finagled some poor kid into giving them a ride to where he'd made his home, two days away in a puttering little spacecraft. They made it in time to sit at the side of his bed and hear him say, "The right tool for the right job. This'll be one for the technical journals."

Spock, in a moment of compassion, handed him a simple wrench and told him quietly, "If there's anything up there that needs fixing, Mr. Scott..."

"You have a week to get it in working order," Jim finished sternly. When Scotty forgot to breathe in a moment later, Kirk gave a weak laugh through his tears. "Our crew won't let God rest. Bones will nag the angels and Scotty - by the stars, he'll be fixing God's own chariot."

"I hope you're right," Spock answered, and they took their leave.

Kirk understood that his bond with Spock had changed him, but he'd never asked for particulars until after Sulu died. They didn't make it in time to be there when he took his last breath, which in itself was unpleasant. He and Chekov lived together, and watching Chekov weep was terrifying. What if this happened to him? What if he had to watch Spock die? What if Spock had to watch him? He wasn't sure which was worse.

Kirk and Spock spoke to Chekov after the burial.

"Hikaru was a wonderful man," Kirk said.

"Ah, you know him," Pavel said sadly. "Filled zis place up with every plant he could get his hands on." It was true. Their home was a greenhouse.

"What were his last words?" Spock asked delicately.

"Don't ask that!" Jim said harshly, hoping to give wide-eyed Pavel a way out if he didn't want to answer.

"Full thrust into the light, eh, Pavel," he said in a whisper, so that they weren't sure at first what he'd said. Chekov squeezed his eyes shut and tears leaked out from beneath his lashes pitifully. "Zat is vot he said to me."

Before they left, Spock chose a small purple flower to take back to their own planet.  
Planting the thing in a bigger pot once they'd arrived home, Kirk sighed. "He was such a young man, Spock. So young to be dying before me."

"I fear every one of them will die before you do. Our bond has changed you."

"I'll have to live while all our friends- hell, Spock, every last ensign from our days on the Enterprise- while they die?" Kirk protested.

"T'hy'la," Spock said gently, sending soothing thoughts through their bond.

"My love, I am only happy that you are not dying so soon. I couldn't stay in the land of the living for another century, not without you." Kirk kissed Spock lightly on the cheek. He resigned himself once again to dying alone, and to attending all the funerals he had hoped never to see.

Uhura was to be taken from them next.

"Beautiful as always, Nyota," Kirk said kindly.

"You say that to all the girls," she answered. She was clear-eyed and good-natured, just the opposite of a woman dying. After an hour of pleasant banter, she frowned. "I can't let you boys watch me die."

"You hardly seem on the brink of death," Spock commented.

"Our captain has finally taught you manners after all this time, Spock," Uhura said. "But you know why I'm dying as much as I do myself."

"You're refusing your medicine," Spock said. He laid a hand on Kirk's arm, hoping to help contain his t'hy'la's next outburst.

"Lieutenant Uhura! In God's name, why?"

"I am old, Captain. You forget I haven't been an active lieutenant for 40 years. There isn't anything left for me."

"But..."

"Jim, I have no family but our crew. You must know that. Our years on the Enterprise were the best of my life, but they denied me everything else in this world. Bones is gone. Monty is, too. Even Hikaru, bless his soul, who must be five years younger than me. Maybe you don't notice it because you have each other. But I'm done here." Kirk's eyes had brimmed over, and tears ran down his face.

"How could you do this to me?" Kirk said. "To us?"

"You would have seen me die anyway. I just choose not to go last." Not twenty minutes later, she said simply "Goodbye" and breathed for the final time.

That evening, when Spock sat in his armchair and meditated, he commented quietly. "She had foresight and initiative to the end. I admire her greatly." Patting Spock's hand thoughtfully, Kirk agreed.

Again they waited. They knew that Pavel Chekov was the last of their famous bridge crew. Even Starfleet had their noses in the air, sensing the beginning of the end of an era.

Kirk was 94 years old when he and Spock got word of little Pavel's decline. Seeing him, the only one that chose to be in a hospital, Kirk was very subdued. He got flashbacks to the eager young ensign, worming his way right into the hearts of the crew with an appalling Russian accent. As an old man, Chekov had become forgetful. He didn't recognise the captain he'd been loyal to for so much of his life. For a brief moment, Spock seemed to stir a memory, but before he could say anything, he settled back into a quiet stupor.

"Pavel Chekov, yes?" Spock sounded official, but he cast a soft glance from Kirk to Chekov.

"Zat is me," Chekov answered dreamily.

"Tell me about yourself. You served on the Enterprise, did you not?"

"I was on ze Enterprise as a boy." He smiled, missing teeth showing. "Under Admiral James Kirk. I commanded the wessel twice as a decoy," he reminisced. "I always wanted to be keptin." His Russian accent, while depleting over the years, had suddenly deepened immensely, as if he had forgotten all his years among Standard-speakers.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Chekov. Have a wonderful day." Kirk said hurriedly. He pulled Spock from the room and leaned his head against Spock's chest. Spock placed a soothing hand on the former captain's back. "This is the worst of them all. He is the only one left besides us. Even McCoy knew we were there, that we loved him. Here there is no such consolation." They hugged tightly for a long time.

"T'hy'la, we do not have to stay," Spock said gently.

"Thank you," Jim breathed, shoulders sagging. They left a donation for his burial- he was an only child, after all, and had no children of his own to support the cost.

Afterward, Kirk felt terribly guilty. Guilty for feeling less about his best friend's death after so long, guilty for not attending the funeral of his best navigator. Guilty, even, for being alive while all the rest were dead. Spock tried to tell him otherwise, but he simply wouldn't listen.

"I'm not supposed to be like this, Spock. I was supposed to die years ago."

"You are my bondmate. My friend, my brother, and my lover. My t'hy'la, do not hurt yourself so." And he had taken Jim into his arms and held him tightly until he stopped shivering.

"I thought I would die alone," he said, "but you're the one who has to."

"Yes." Spock stiffened suddenly, and looked past Kirk to the wall. "Someday I will be alone."

"I'm sorry, Spock."

"You are always and forever forgiven," he returned, smiling with his eyes, just the way only those who knew him could detect.

Now Kirk was 120 years old or so (he couldn't always remember exactly). He was ailing, but miraculously he was not alone.

"60 years since I piloted a starship, Spock."

"60 years we have been at peace, then, James." Then Spock did something that he had only ever done on accident or under manipulation: he began to cry. Great heaving sobs wracked his thin body. Sorrow weighed down on the well-worn bond between them, sorrow and anger. "Jim, I'm so sorry," he wailed, shaking uncontrollably. He bent forward and laid his forehead on Kirk's bedspread. "I always thought I would lose you to something I could get revenge on."

Kirk couldn't speak. Tears ran down his cheeks, and he lifted up Spock's face to see it dappled with green blotches where his tears had been.

"Lay with me," he choked out, and scooted heavily to one side of the bed. "Please." Spock clambered into the bed, lying face to face with his t'hy'la for the last time. Kirk reached out and lazily ruffled Spock's grey hair. "I love you."

Spock's breath hitched, and tears rolled down the side of his nose. "As I love you. Each day without you will be an eternity. I cannot go on." Despair filled the part of Kirk's mind that belonged to their bond.

Guiding Spock's hands gently, he placed one on his face. On instinct, Spock found the mend points and closed his eyes. Their thoughts became one.  
Spock unwittingly passed images of bereaved Vulcans he had read about in his studies, had seen with is own eyes. They let their hair grow long, as if they were initiates in the Kolinahr. Yet far from practicing the ritual of emotion purging, they tore at themselves from the inside, trying to find the place where their bond had been, and finding only the raw place where it had been taken away. It was frightening to lose one so close to oneself, and Vulcan widows and widowers sometimes went mad or died for want of the link they had come to rely on. Kirk shoved these terrifying images from himself, saying emphatically, _You can live without me, Spock. And you will._

Jim reached out with his mind when he felt himself fading, saying goodbye to a t'hy'la that was more than he could have ever asked for. A friend, a brother, closer to him than a friend, and a lover, more intimate than any brother.

Suddenly through the meld Spock saw a young Jim Kirk, 35 years old and captain of a thriving Enterprise, standing before him in the room where he had spent years training and working among the stars.

"Spock," he said incredulously. Apparently both of them appeared now in their young bodies. Looking around, he ran a hand reverently across the walls of his old quarters.

"Fascinating," he said quietly, clearly marvelling at their youth. Kirk laughed at the old phrase and settled into Spock's side. It was easy- the comfort of a young body and the wisdom and love of an old mind.

"I wish we could have had this back then," he said.

"So do I," Spock replied, allowing Kirk to lean against his chest. Time stood still.

Then pain.

Such terrible pain that Spock thought he was the one dying. He was caught tangled in the mind of a dead man, unable to extricate himself. Everything before him melted away, except a screech that persisted long after the image had gone. He was reaching to a katra that had left, grasping a hand that would never grasp back. He searched for the bond, but it had dissolved, leaving behind nothing but an empty socket. He floundered in nothingness and excruciating mental agony. He wrenched his mind away, wishing he didn't need to, knowing that his t'hy'la couldn't feel anymore, didn't need his gentleness.

He woke from the meld abruptly, sitting up and snapping open his eyes, and cried out from the shock. He wailed like he was not a Vulcan. Indeed he felt primal, instinctual, animal, angry. He yelled aloud, but with no words, neither in Standard nor in Vulcan.

Then the rage left him. He gathered Jim Kirk into his arms and held him tight. Squeezing his eyes shut, he sang a lullaby to him in Vulcan, low and deep and interrupted with quiet tears, falling shamefully onto their worn pyjamas. Spock rocked James Kirk like a child and sang his katra to the Eternal Place.

There was a time when there was nothing. Then Jim Kirk saw a light. It was an extremely white light, with no hint of the blue tint that characterised starship lighting. He was very frightened. Yet he knew beyond a doubt that the light was Paradise, Heaven, the Eternal Place. Looking back, he saw darkness, and he heard soft-sung words in Vulcan. He longed to go back to that low voice and that warm room, but he also longed to go forward, because the light was compelling. Indecision gnawed at him until he heard more voices, joyous ones, chattering in delight.

"Come on, Jim. We're waiting for you."

"Bones? Is that you?" he asked redundantly, for he knew McCoy's voice as he knew his own.

"For the love of god, cap'n, Get in here," Scotty said heartily, in his characteristic burr.

That was all the encouragement he needed. He ran to meet them. Each was there, and yet somehow not there. He saw their souls, their katra, through a steady flicker of their earthly bodies. The place he had emerged from the tunnel was brightly lit and rather misty-looking. He could almost hear the hum of his old Enterprise. It felt very much like home, though it was nothing like he'd ever experienced.

"What is this place?" he asked.

"I know, sir," Sulu piped up, looking bright and happy. "This is like... a reception room. Once we get further in it looks like... well, you'll see."

"What about..." Kirk trailed off nervously, stomach churning with anxiety.

"Spock will be along soon enough," Uhura said with a smile. "No need to worry." Kirk breathed deeply and allowed himself to grin.

"Thank you, Nyota." He looked past her to Chekov, loitering in the background. His face fell. "Pavel," he said sadly. He went over and put a hand on Pavel's shoulder. "I'm sorry I never said goodbye."

"I should apologise, keptin. You came to see me, and I did not even know you." Kirk clasped his shoulder, feeling relieved of a heavy weight. Suddenly Bones drawled from behind him.

"Don't tell me we're fighting our way out of this Paradise," he said lazily. He was slumped against a wall, arms crossed. He was trying very hard to look grumpy.

"McCoy!" He said gleefully. Having greeted all of the others with a handshake or a hand on the shoulder, he scooped his best friend up in a giddy hug, mindless of his loud protestations. "I would't dream of it," he said, holding him at arm's length.

"Well, why not? You've got us out of all the other heavens we've found." Bones persisted in attempting to look indignant, but it showed that he was terribly happy to have his best friend back.

"Because you're here, of course. All of you. Well, almost all."

"Aye, your boyfriend'll be around soon enough," Scotty said. "But let's go have a look-see before then." They turned from the mouth of the tunnel, which had gone silent, and walked directly into the bridge of the Enterprise.

"Enterprise," he breathed.

"Just the same," Chekov said brightly.

"I told you, sir," Sulu said, clutching Chekov's hand. "She's perfect."

"Does she fly?" Kirk asked, looking around in awe.

"Of course she does, sir!" Scotty said, offended. "An' bless her heart, she still has her tantrums." They laughed, and fell to talking.

Uhura tapped Jim on the shoulder after what could have been a very long time. Or perhaps it had only been a moment. It was hard to tell in this lovely place that looked so much like his home.

"He's almost here. And he's asked to see you first."

Suddenly he was formless again. He stood at the mouth of the tunnel, and he heard light footsteps. It was Spock. Both were silent. Jim didn't know what to do, and Spock didn't know he was there.

"Spock," he said. A gasp reverberated from the darkness of the tunnel.

"Jim?" It was an incredulous word, filled with longing and love. Spock all but ran from the tunnel and looked at Jim as if he were seeing him for the first time again. Smiling with his eyes in the way only he could, he took Kirk in his arms and hugged him tightly for a good long time. Then they kissed, slowly and contentedly. "It is immeasurably good to see you," he said, after they resumed hugging.

"I missed you." Jim returned. "Everyone else is waiting. Bones, too."

"Perhaps I should turn around and go back into the tunnel, in that case," Spock said sarcastically. Kirk laughed and, on a ridiculous whim, touched his finger to Spock's nose.

"Don't you dare." Kirk steered him away from the tunnel. Spock raised his eyebrows.

"I have quite the story to tell, t'hy'la. I _do_ have to be here to tell it."

_Enfin_


End file.
